Friday, May 23, 2008

Guild Cafe, a website I was not registered for before today, but often used to browse for quality player-specific content, screen shots, and gaming stories, has been moving towards a redesign of GuildCafe.com and turning into GamerDNA.com.

Normally, I try to stick with a "I like this site" blurb and link in a post, but I think GamerDNA is worthy of a bit more than just that. Why? Because they are moving forward on a lot of fronts that really highlight their focus on gamers, games, and gamers sharing their stories about those games.

I've never been shy about stating that I would rather read a biased blog post from an actual gamer than a carefully crafted article from any of the major gaming news sites. I've never been shy about stating that I believe game reviews from real gamers are almost always more truthful than anything found on an official review website. However, I've also always felt that there was no common thread to connect these ideas together.

One of the problems is that some gaming websites, that build a gamer community, usually focus to heavily on a single game and therefore the entire site becomes a bit biased. It is fine when a single blogger, who plays a single game heavily, comments just about that game. That blogger's motivation is easy to see. However, when a bunch of those bloggers, playing the same game, get together on one site, it gets very frustrating for anyone outside of that circle because it feels as though the community is not on board.

This is a tough order for a new site to overcome, especially with World of Warcraft dominating most of the revenue streams for gaming websites. Plus, eight million online players ensures that the majority of conversations will be about World of Warcraft on an online site devoted to gamers. It just goes hand in hand.

So, hopefully GamerDNA can avoid this curse, and so far the features I've heard about are aimed squarely at hitting a wide spectrum of games and gamers. GamerDNA is entering beta and I hope to help give them some valuable feedback to make the site one of the premium gaming community sites out there.

Now to drum up a bit of support for GamerDNA's current website, Guild Cafe, I would like to link to their new contest.

You can be Horde, Alliance, radically geared or barely clad. A simple screenshot of your character in World of Warcraft is enough to be the lucky winner of a Frostmourne replica made by Epic Weapons.

Guild Cafe, a website I was not registered for before today, but often used to browse for quality player-specific content, screen shots, and gaming stories, has been moving towards a redesign of GuildCafe.com and turning into GamerDNA.com.

Normally, I try to stick with a "I like this site" blurb and link in a post, but I think GamerDNA is worthy of a bit more than just that. Why? Because they are moving forward on a lot of fronts that really highlight their focus on gamers, games, and gamers sharing their stories about those games.

I've never been shy about stating that I would rather read a biased blog post from an actual gamer than a carefully crafted article from any of the major gaming news sites. I've never been shy about stating that I believe game reviews from real gamers are almost always more truthful than anything found on an official review website. However, I've also always felt that there was no common thread to connect these ideas together.

One of the problems is that some gaming websites, that build a gamer community, usually focus to heavily on a single game and therefore the entire site becomes a bit biased. It is fine when a single blogger, who plays a single game heavily, comments just about that game. That blogger's motivation is easy to see. However, when a bunch of those bloggers, playing the same game, get together on one site, it gets very frustrating for anyone outside of that circle because it feels as though the community is not on board.

This is a tough order for a new site to overcome, especially with World of Warcraft dominating most of the revenue streams for gaming websites. Plus, eight million online players ensures that the majority of conversations will be about World of Warcraft on an online site devoted to gamers. It just goes hand in hand.

So, hopefully GamerDNA can avoid this curse, and so far the features I've heard about are aimed squarely at hitting a wide spectrum of games and gamers. GamerDNA is entering beta and I hope to help give them some valuable feedback to make the site one of the premium gaming community sites out there.

Now to drum up a bit of support for GamerDNA's current website, Guild Cafe, I would like to link to their new contest.

You can be Horde, Alliance, radically geared or barely clad. A simple screenshot of your character in World of Warcraft is enough to be the lucky winner of a Frostmourne replica made by Epic Weapons.